Colorado backpacking

A backpacker hiking the Continental Divide Trail north toward Squaw Pass in the Weminuche Wilderness, San Juan Mountains, Colorado.

Backpacking a CDT Sampler in Colorado’s Weminuche Wilderness

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By Michael Lanza

Warm, summer-like temperatures and mostly sunny skies greet us as we start hiking up the Williams Creek Trail in southwestern Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. Even in mid-September, the southern Rocky Mountains sun remains intense here, at over 9,000 feet. Its surprising warmth (compared to the northern Rockies) reminds me of days on the John Muir Trail or in Yosemite in August. But ominous clouds trot across the sky, some of them ripening to the color of a plum ready for picking, and the forecast calls for possible thunderstorms today and tomorrow.

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Ouzel Lake in Wild Basin, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.

The 5 Rules About Kids I Broke While Backpacking in Rocky Mountain National Park

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By Michael Lanza

“I’m dying!” my son, Nate, bellowed to the entire forest in the Wild Basin of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. “This pack is too heavy!” We were just 30 minutes up the trail at the outset of a three-day backpacking trip. It was a trip that seemed like an unmitigated disaster for the first two days—then morphed into an adventure my kids clearly enjoyed and that helped expand their outdoor interests.

For me, those three days in Rocky serve as a reminder about the many ways you can do it wrong when taking kids outdoors, but how simple it is to make it right.

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